The mind is dulled, not fed, by inordinate reading, it is made gradually incapable of reflection and concentration, and therefore of production…. Never read when you can reflect; read only, except in moments of recreation, what concerns the purpose you are pursuing; and read little, so as not to eat up your interior silence.
– A. G. Sertillanges wrote in The Intellectual Life
If we become too involved in the beautiful imitation, we can begin to lose touch with the real thing.
– Peter Thorpe argued in Why Literature Is Bad for You that the negative effects of reading outweigh the positive
Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
– Alain de Botton said
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
— Frederick Douglass
It's common for people who love learning to focus on reading/watching material without synthesizing it. Here are some ideas for how you can accelerate your learning:
“Marking a book is literally an experience of your differences or agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.” – Edgar Allen Poe
A useful heuristic: Anything easily digested is reading for information.